Have you ever heard of a hāngī? It’s a traditional New Zealand Māori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven, called an umu. However we haven’t talked about why it’s important to the Māori culture. Māori were aware that the earth was the giver of all life, from the soil came food and that same food was cooked beneath the earth. That is why the traditional way of cooking for Māori was in a pit under the ground in an oven called a hangi.

Step 1: First you need common vegetables and some common meat. After that, start digging a pit. A hāngī pit is dug to a depth of between 50-100 cm, to hold the rocks and two stacked baskets of food. It shouldn’t take too long to dig, but if you have more people, it will be faster and the hole will be dug so fast! Step 2: After getting stones, iron and wood and light. Start stacking the stone, iron, wood and light. Do the stone first then the iron, wood, and then once you have stacked the others only then stack the light.

Step 3: After stacking and digging, heat the hāngī stones for a minimum of three hours until white hot (Do it until iron is red hot) – this is to ensure they are hot enough to thoroughly cook the food. Step 4: While waiting for a few hours, you start preparing the vegetables and meat. It might take a bit longer than other people if you were going to cook a feast. After that wrap and keep it away from the wrap. After that you can wait for it to heat up or you can just tell someone else to wait for it to heat up! If that person gets bored you both can just do it and entertain each other. 

Step 5: After it is heated up you then start to fill the pit in with the stone and iron etc. Step 6: You get the food you prepared before and then you put the hāngī/Kai in the pit with all the hot stuff. After that, cover it in wet clothes and sacks. Step 7: After that put earth/the dirt you dug up on the top so no steam can get out. It might take a while for one person but more people will make it easier for you to put earth on the top.

Step 8: Wait a few hours. While you’re waiting you can use the time to get to know your Whanau. Step 9: Get your Whanau to help you dig up the pit, then get it, serve it and enjoy it. If you like it make sure that you remember how to make it because it is hard to find on the internet!

Personally I have never tried hāngī, but I hope I can try it in the future. Hāngī is a traditional food that includes so many steps, but in the end I think that all the hard work and effort was worth it because it must taste good because it’s made by earth and mostly heated with wood, iron etc.